2026 Week 31

Five weeks since I've managed a Sunday update! In that time, I've managed to finish off (allegedly) the summer exam series, complete the last three and a half weeks of the school year (which included four days in Birmingham and a sports day, but very little actual teaching) and add about 3000 words to the dissertation. There has been much lolling around doing little silly bits on the computer and playing endless hands of Freecell on my phone. There has been some arguing with pension providers because the exam board managed to get my date of birth wrong when they updated their payment system earlier this year. That's all the annoying stuff, anyway. 

On the plus side, there have been trips - I went to Oxford for an overnight to do dissertation work right after we broke up, which included a swim in the Thames at Fiddlers Island, off Port Meadow. I have wanted to swim here since my first uni visit to Oxford but have not been brave enough to go in alone. This time, I walked over there promising myself I would only get in if other people were there, and there were, so I did. Of course, being me, I could not get in where everyone else was, so I waded in at a likely-looking spot that was so deep with mud it almost tugged off my sandal. I spent the rest of the swim slightly concerned that I had a footful of leeches or some other problem - I did not. 

It's very pretty there and the water flows from two places, rejoining under a bridge, off of which some lads were leaping. I overheard them telling some dog-walker that they'd travelled all the way from Aylesbury for a swim. At that point I was gently swimming towards the middle arch of the bridge; one of them said, 'Oh I will just jump in once more' and came to right above where I was, climbing onto the parapet to prepare to jump. I really think he did not even see me, so I had to take swift evasive action and he landed a few feet away. I know there's a whole thing about middle aged women being invisible, but come on. 

I quite fancied a jump from the bridge but then decided I couldn't know the depth and didn't want to deal with wet hair, so I contented myself with just bobbing about. Said boys then moved on to going off a rope swing, though I noted with interest that they were ever so fraidy about letting go - not that surprising, maybe, because poor timing might have landed them painfully on the bank. It made me think about the fear. On the other side of me were a couple of girls who were contemplating one day bring like 'that lady' (me) and going out of their depth. There was me, contemplating jumping off the bridge. Then there were the bridge jumpers, contemplating going off the swing. I wonder if there were people on the meadow, contemplating getting in the water. I am not sure what might be scarier than going off the rope swing. 

I got a fair amount done in Oxford but not the full first draft, as I wanted. I was supposed to work on it all this week but I managed an hour on Friday, pretty pathetic. But it will get done. I have convinced myself that it could now be completed in one 48-hour burst - not well, but finished - and so I have lost any motivation to work on it. It will come on holiday with me and maybe I will find my groove again. 

After Oxford I hot-footed it off to London for many excursions and catch ups. I did 37,000 steps in two days and my knee is still talking about. I began in Richmond on Sunday, with a visit to Ham House with Burhan (very little ham, but not one of those NT houses where the owners don't really want you there, so that was good). From there I went to my hotel by St Paul's and had a drink in their slightly disappointing rooftop bar, great views but poor service and what seemed to be a pre-mixed cocktail. It was deliciously cold up there, though, which was very welcome. There were a couple of women I'd given directions to earlier in the evening, huddled on a sofa, wrapped in blankets like old nonnas. I lasted one drink and one chapter of Dracula and then went to bed. 

Monday was the busy day. I went to the sauna first thing, marred by the pumping Europop (why?!); then I went to St Paul's and immediately climbed to the roof to enjoy the views. I scouted Ally Pally and took a picture of it. I returned to ground level for the tour I'd booked, taking in Tyndale's bible - which involved reclimbing a whole bunch of stairs. From there, I hot-footed my way over to Somerset House for the Escher exhibition, which I really loved. I even managed to piss off a man by not doing what he wanted, bonus. 

From there, over to the V&A for the Schiaparelli exhibition. I loved this, such fun clothes, but I didn't realise there was a modern iteration and I'm not sure if it was really my thing. The old stuff though - superb. Loved it. I could have spent a lot longer there, but I was getting a bit browsed out by that point, so I went back to the hotel for a micro-rest and then over to the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath for a swim. It was much warmer than last year and a lot busier, but also a lot more ducklings - so cute. 

Sample conversation:

Girl 1: Our limit it 2.3

Girl 2: And what is Matt putting in? 

Pause

Girl 2: 1.1? 1.2?

Girl 1: 1.4

Girl 2: So you're capping at 900,000? Well you work hard enough...

Girl 1: Stop, it's...Mind your business!

Girl 2: You are my business.

Hampstead, eh? 

From there I went over to AP and took a picture of St Paul's, so I could meld them together for a morning/evening comparison. 

I'm way too excited about this. 

I met one of the exam board guys for drinks, which was fun. We normally only see each other once a year at a conference but this year we have managed three. We never seem to run out of things to talk about and chatted until I was much colder than I realised. 

The next day was meant to be another sauna and a swim before my haircut and getting the train home but I managed to leave my swimmers at the pond, so gutted. I managed to find the bikini top for sale on ebay and bought it right away, but had to replace the bottoms with some other bottoms - which are actually a better blue, it must be said. And those bottoms were starting to go a little white-thready, like when the elastic goes. But I hate losing things and so that was pretty annoying. I even joined the Facebook group for the pond and someone went to look in lost property for me, to no avail. Ah well. I hope they are off having amazing adventures on someone who really appreciates them.

I should note, here, that I did not need to replace them. I have too many swim items, I can't stop buying bikinis since they started to be more commonly available in my size. But - I repeat - I hate losing things. Even telling myself that I could have lost something more valuable - my phone, my headphones, my purse, my laptop - didn't make me feel better. 

What else has happened? I had lunch with Alex, back from Kazakhstan before starting a new job in China (new place to visit). I had dinner with my friend Vanessa. Mr Z and I celebrated 20 years of marriage by having his family over for ribs and cake. 

I've been working on the sleeves of the jumper I'm knitting, they are going slowly but they are going. Mr Z and I watched The Hawk on Netflix this week, which we enjoyed: I feel like Will Ferrell is a very safe pair of hands for comedy. I started watching The Five Star Weekend and I need to finish Euphoria, I have put it on my summer holiday list. 

I finished reading Dracula, I had forgotten how abrupt the ending was and so it left me a little HUH. I dived straight into Yesteryear which everyone seems to love but I just didn't. I like the premise but the story wasn't especially well-developed. I wonder if I don't really get on with books where every character is meant to be unlikeable, or whether I don't like books that have no redemption or happy ending, but it wasn't for me. I was left feeling like the author had a great idea for a book, and then the film studios got wind of it and made her write it how they wanted it to be - so it's the book of a series that hasn't yet been made, sort of thing. That would explain why it felt like it lacked depth. Happily, it only took me about three days to plough through it and I made a start on a library book, At First Light, that I will need to set aside from tomorrow because it is holiday time!

Adventures with dyeing: orange playsuit

Mother Hand taught me about machine dyeing clothes, a long, long time ago. She used to dye lots of things when she was younger. I forgot about this for a long time but, in the covid era, my memory came back. I am a lover of strong, saturated colour. I think fashion has preferred muted tones and soft beiges for a while. But I have started to see this as a blank canvas. 

The playsuit has become the garment of my 40s. I live in them during the holidays and I am constantly on the look out for new ones. I made over and dyed a couple of playsuits back in 2022: both from Tesco; one a pale green Mrs Hinch jumpsuit that I cut the legs off and dyed turquoise, another a beige linen creation with a poorly scaled belt that I cut up and fashioned into something to stop the straps from slipping down, then dyed bright pink. Both still going strong.

Fanciest hotel bathroom ever. Any excuse to share this picture again, it's one of my faves. 

So, anyway, when Sea Salt brought out the Salt Air linen playsuit with a button over the shoulder I had to have it (I've linked it but if the link has gone dead it's because I bought it in 2024). It came in two colours that I wouldn't have chosen, so I chose the sand colour. I tried it on when it arrived and Mr Z, who is helpfully blunt, said it looked like I was wearing a flour sack. The colour does not work for me. I'm sure it would work for others. 

This is the back. I should make a point of taking pictures of garments properly before I mess with them, but I still remember when I went to machine dye a red dress from Boden, laid it over the counter for the before shot, wondered what the smell was, realised I had laid it over the toaster that was making my breakfast and burnt the back out. So gutted. Dyed it anyway because the dye was already in the machine; kept it for about 3 years before I finally had to admit it was not salvageable. I keep telling you - borderline hoarder. 

Anyway, I went with orange for this playsuit and it took the dye so well. Linen always does but I was very pleased. I keep meaning to change the buttons for something a bit jazzier but there's no need, really. Here I am playing in it in fountains in Skanderberg Square last summer. It is a playsuit, after all. 

If you are feeling the need to machine dye something and you've somehow stumbled across this post looking for comfort - you do definitely need to follow the instructions on the tub; yes, you need to run that many cycles; yes, you absolutely must weigh your fabric in advance (ask me how I know); no, it won't ruin your machine - I did once end up with the seals dyed a bit navy but they were colourfast and stayed navy until the machine broke, many years later when a bearing went; yes, it will be colour fast afterwards. If the thread used for stitching is nylon it will stay white but it's no biggie - the stitching on the pink one, above, remained white but you'd have to get very close to me to notice. I use the Dylon tubs and they really could not make it any easier. I'd like to level up and start colour mixing so I get custom colours, really, but I am also trying not to buy more clothes until the old ones wear out. 

Also I don't want to say I am a trendsetter but I have just noticed Sea Salt have the long version of this in a strong orange this summer. Just saying. 

Things I will do to procrastinate the actual work whilst sitting at my desk

1. Any small bit of easy work, whether it needs doing or not

2. Scroll on my phone while sitting at my computer

3. Tidy the desk

4. Huff about how cluttered and dirty Mr Z's side of the desk/office is and make plans for how to organise his stuff

5. Delete and file emails - home and work inboxes; Gmail if I am really going for it

6. Write worklists on my whiteboard

7. Block out future holidays on the wall planner

8. Clean the keyboard

9. Blog pointless lists

94 scripts left to mark and two big reports to write. If I can get them done today (this is not achievable but...) then I could not do any work at all over the weekend.

Yet here I am...blogging. 

Things I think about the heat

1. Thank goodness I lost some weight two years ago because this would be infinitely more hellish otherwise.

2. As I learned in bikram - keeping still and quiet and expending minimal energy and not wiping the sweat more than you can help is the one.

3. I did feel minorly guilty a month ago when I found a mini electric hand fan at school and took it home rather than turning it into lost property but I do NOT feel any regrets now. 

4. The older I get, the more I dislike air conditioning. 

4. I appreciate the heat because I know how lovely it will be in three days when I'm sitting outside in the evening and it's actually a little cool on my skin. 

6. I appreciate the heat because it turns the mundane into an almost biblical experience: drinking a glass of really cold water, taking a cool shower, lying on the bed with wet hair in front of a fan. I know this is a bit Pollyanna of me. I don't care. It's too hot to care. 

7. It's not as hot as it was two weeks ago. 

8. Please, please let this autumn be the autumn that I finally stop procrastinating and get thermal-lined curtains for the front rooms of the house. 

9. Remember when it rained basically every day in January? Fun times. 

2026 Week 25

It's been a week of exam work, with a little dissertation work wedged in around the edges. Oh, and school, obvs. 

School is weird. What I'm doing looks like it's being successful, I'm told by my boss it's being successful, but the trust don't want me to continue doing it, so my role might change for next year. I'm trying to resist this, for a variety of reasons, but ultimately need to remember something I say often to other people: I work for them, they get to choose what I do. A few conversations have been had. In one of these conversations, I plucked up the courage to tell the Head that I think next year needs to be my last year in teaching for a while. I've been thinking it for so long without saying it that I could feel myself blushing and hear the blood in my ears. I know this isn't the same as resigning and I'll still be in role for another year, but I feel like I've started the countdown. I don't want to leave my school but I don't think I can continue to work for this MAT. I don't have it in my to lie down and shut up. 

So, a lot of the week has also been spent mentally calculating my living expenses and mourning the future loss of my monthly salary. I will be financially fine but I kind of like being paid every month, you know? I expect interesting projects will come along once I have capacity for them. Mr Z has also pointed out that I haven't been particularly happy at work for about two years, which I hadn't really noticed (I realise how stupid this sounds but sometimes it does take someone else to say these things out loud to recognise them). So I think I am ready to start letting it go. 

I spent Wednesday at the university for a training day, with my good friend Jonty who does my job at another school, so we get this nice catch up every year now. A couple of other friends I haven't seen for a while were there as well, so nice to see people, especially at this time of year when it feels like all my communication is with people I mark with and all by email or text. 

I went to the sauna, to hot yoga and for a quarry swim. No Sunday gym, I am out of the habit now but I am not being down on myself about it, it will come back when I've got through the dissertation work. We continued with the second season of The Pitt until we ran out of episodes; I've been watching the new series of Amandaland which is almost too awkward for me to cope with, but I love Lucy Punch in it. No knitting. Bit of Dracula reading. 

TLDR - not a very interesting week but it might turn out to be an important one, in the long run. 

2026 Week 24

It has been a predictably busy few weeks. 

In half term, I went to Oxford for the week. It was a very productive trip. First of all, I found a new library that I hadn't been into before; it turns out that it was only opened in October last year, which explains why I had never been in, even though it is under 10 minutes' walk from where I stay and open 9-9. I spent a very long day in there, as well as hitting All Souls and the Rad Cam, my two long-standing favourites; I ate at my favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner spots; I walked in University Parks. My Oxford swansong. I booked an additional night there just before dissertation hand in and also discovered I can get a Bodleian libraries card as an alumna, so the libraries won't be totally off-limits. I'm fairly sure I won't get back there nearly as often as I'd like to, though. 

The best thing about going to Oxford was the progress I managed to make on my dissertation. I have gone from it being a low-level panic that I thought of when I woke up every morning, to something that I am now confident I can finish on time in a state that will pass. I got about 7000 words down in the week and I finished my research interviews; since then, I have made some updates to my lit review and started coding my data, as they say. I was all in my head about coding my data for a long old time but then I realised that it just means reading it and picking out some things that look like common themes. Not such a big deal. I had an online meeting with my supervisor this week and it really does feel like the end if in sight; after doing some coding, with the meeting coming up a day earlier than expected, I decided I would sit for an hour and bash out some things I had spotted: that turned into a thousand words and a comment that 'this looks really good, now it's just a question of finding some quotes'. Thrilling. 

It is hard to carve out the time now that we are into marking season, but carve it out I will. The date for the end of All The Work is still the end of September, but as that draws closer, it is actually comforting. The period of endless hard work is shortening. Work is being done. It will be fine. 

A couple of other half term adventures included a walk around Chew Lake with Saff and Kate, on a blisteringly sunny day, and a visit to an exhibition of lesser-seen Elizabethan portraits during my quick trip to London. Plus the new Banksy statue. 

I wedged a lot in. It's what happens when I'm busy with work. On Friday night I got AI to teach me how to code a button on my homescreen that plays the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme tune whenever Mr Z says something about everything going wrong. It took longer than it should have done but I was thrilled with my new knowledge and with my new ability to soundtrack his life. We are into week 4 or 5 of impossibly hurty knee, so he is less thrilled than me. 

This past week has been setting up everything for exam marking, which necessitated a couple of 16-hour days, but it is becoming clearer to me that the more hours I can put in ahead of online marking starting (this weekend), the more fruits will appear. The way that the system works now, the bulk of my labour is done. That feels very odd to say that, but it is true. There is plenty more to do, of course, but it is spread out and deadlines are fairly moveable. 

I've been re-reading Dracula through all of this, which is easy to pick up for a few pages, mostly because I know it so well. I saw Cynthia Erivo playing Dracula in London during Oxford week. It was a great version where she played 23 different parts, interacting with pre-recorded characters she'd played, and I enjoyed it hugely. The one thing that irritated me was that she had a conversation with Lucy, early on in the play, where Lucy admitted to having been intimate with Arthur. I didn't remember this being in the book and it was so f'ing hackneyed, that awful old trope of 'woman has sex and then gets horribly murdered' that shows up in all the sexually-repressed American films, that I had to come back and reread the book to see if it was in there and I'd forgotten. It's not. There's a letter that Lucy writes to Mina where she says she is looking forward to Arthur being her 'husband and lover', but that's it. Now, I never read Dracula at school: I haven't done a deep dive into the themes and metaphors Stoker apparently put in there (I think he was just looking to write a blockbuster horror book like Mary Shelley but I'm not an English teacher so...) but I think it would be a stretch to suggest that Lucy was promiscuous just because she was proposed to three times in one day and was excited about marrying a man. 

As you can see, this topic has been living rent-free in my head for some time now. I just hate the inherent misogyny of the whole 'if you have sex, things will end badly for you' theme. For a modern example, see Taken: friend says she will have sex with Frenchman she met, friend kidnapped and ends up dying after being overdosed with heroin in a squat. Meanwhile, girl who was shocked at the idea of having sex is rescued. Tell me that's not barely-coded messaging to elicit patriarchal society's preferred behaviours among women, but I will not believe you. And I'm very annoyed that the writers of stage Dracula decided to take this quite modern trope and wedge it into a 19th century book. As if we need any more trad wife messaging*. 

Anyway. 

The blue jumper grows: I'm about 4 inches off finishing the body. I am concerned about the roll of the neck but I will take some steps to fix it when I'm finished and know how much yarn I have left. I shouldn't be spending any time knitting but I am desperate to see how much yarn the body will take and the only way to find that out is by knitting it. 

The peonies came out in the garden in spectacular fashion and have now gone over and been replaced by the honeysuckle. The cooler June has enabled outside sitting. I've enjoyed it. Maybe a separate post for the peony pictures because they were so lovely, I took loads. 

I've been baking this weekend, ahead of teacher appreciation day. I don't bake so often these days and I don't write about it on here, but I will say that I made a mint version of the lemon curd recipe I discovered over 15 years ago. I think I had in my mind that a lovely mint curd would be like a slightly less cloying version of the centre of a Fry's peppermint cream bar. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I halved the OG lemon curd recipe and blended a fair old bunch of mint leaves with the sugar before I made it. This definitely worked, but the result is more toothpaste that peppermint cream. I might try mixing in some icing sugar before I put it in a cake. 

* be a trad wife if you want to. I am here for it. Feminism is all about women, and men, choosing what they want. But within that, don't tell other people that it's the better way to be. That's up to them to decide. 

Early Summer Goals

I tried to make this list a bit more about accountability and it was helpful. 

Not too shabby at all! I didn't manage seven gym trips; I didn't go on any Mondays. Letting myself off a bit. I was very close to seven but, meh. I also didn't make it to hot yoga because I bought a 10-class card that expires in September, so of course I didn't go even once. But meh, there's always this term. 

I've ticked a couple that others might not have done. I have sorted well over 100 things to donate (socks count as two - my rules) but they haven't left my house yet, I need to sort into ragging and wearable. I did make a start on this but I need to do one last sort before I end up taking holey socks to the charity shop. Did I do an hour of dissertation work every day? No. I tried to on every day that I could, though. Sometimes it was just staring. But it has, thank goodness, all started to come together, thanks to my week in the libraries of Oxford last week. I am horrified that the first draft is due in under 8 weeks but this no longer feels completely unachievable. Also - it may be awful for the next 8 weeks but, after that, it will be basically done. 

I finished my research, hurrah! I did lovely things like catching up with my coursemates at a lecture in Oxford and the Macfarlane lecture and Wonderwool and Powis Castle. 

I returned to the quarry for a swim, first time in nearly a year, it made me sad I don't go as often these days. But it has been winter so, yknow. And I have found the local sauna now and that is not the same but very good in its own way, and cheaper, and closer to home. 

I've been reflecting on whether I need a list for this term. I don't think I do. It is going to be too chaotic between the marking and the end of the school year and the dissertation. I have written myself an impossible schedule of work to follow and so my goal is really just to stick as close to that as I can, because this will make for a happier summer. 

But I will be thinking of nice things to put on my summer holiday list - of that you can be assured.